


Five Ways the Sentinel and Guide Never Meet

by Verlaine



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25382917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verlaine/pseuds/Verlaine
Summary: It doesn’t take much to change history.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Five Ways the Sentinel and Guide Never Meet

**One: Lady Isabel Burton**

"Mrs. Burton, please!" The chairman of the Exploration Society was a stout, pompous man, obviously unused to being thwarted. His exasperation with Isabel Burton took the form of speaking with the loud, overly-precise tone he might have used with someone to whom English was unfamiliar. "We have already explained the Society is willing to pay handsomely to have your husband's papers removed and catalogued. We will ensure they are properly curated and made available only to the most respectable of scholars and 

"Gentlemen, I do not know how to make my feelings in this matter any plainer. During his life, my husband's notoriety caused me much distress. I do not propose to allow that to continue after his death. My husband's papers are my property and I will dispose of them as I see fit."

"We are aware—"

"Indeed you are not!" Isabel snapped. "You can afford to indulge your interests, and go on your merry way. You are not judged by polite society. You do not depend on the goodwill of your neighbour's wives to make life bearable. I have had to endure gossip and penury and being given the cut direct by people who believe me to be a slattern because of my husband's reputation.

"That will now, finally, come to an end."

The secretary of the Society almost wrung his hands in distress. "Sir Richard's papers are so valuable, so unique. His translations from original tribal languages offer us glimpses into foreign societies it might take us decades to rediscover. Please reconsider. Think of all the knowledge we will lose."

Isabel forced herself to breathe and speak calmly. "I am not a fool, sir. I do not propose to keep his writing hidden forever. But I will assert my right to ensure only the best of his character and work are bequeathed to posterity. You are well aware of the kind of reception some of his earlier books had. I will not allow that to occur again."

"So you will take it on yourself to censor his writing? For shame, Lady Isabel. Sir Richard never flinched from the truth about any people, no matter what their customs."

"We live in a modern nation, enlightened both by the teaching of the Church and by scientific discovery. There are many aspects of primitive cultures which will be no loss."

"Consider how poor our world would be now if our ancestors had thought the same of Aristotle and Cicero."

"I doubt we need concern ourselves with finding great philosophy and oratory among painted savages. I believe we have no more to discuss. Baldwin, show these gentlemen out.”

After the explorers had left, Isabel stood alone in the center of the room, looking at the overflowing shelves of books and maps and curios, the boxes holding more papers and manuscripts piled haphazardly in corners. All the enjoyment she found in the years of travel with Richard was condensed into this room now. She wandered from desk to shelf to box, picking up and setting down one volume after another. They were right, those earnest men; she held Richard's legacy, and she had a duty to see it preserved. But even stronger was her duty to preserve her husband's good name, and her own, from further scandal. Her duty was to ensure the future saw the best of Sir Richard Burton, not the worst.

She hesitated over one slim volume, then picked it up. Her fingers traced the words on the cover: _The Sentinels of Paraguay_. Richard had been fascinated by the tales of the tribal watchmen, whose keen eyesight and hearing protected their tribes. And even more fascinated, she acknowledged bitterly, by the tales of their intimate associations with their guides. It should not have come as a surprise: he had written in enormous detail of the practices of eastern harems. But in this book, as in several others, the lascivious particulars of the ways of men with men went beyond the pale.

The book fell open, as it always did, on the first illustration. A tall comely native man, a spear on one hand, was caught gazing into the distance at something only he could see. Every time she saw the picture, she thought him the most handsome man she had ever seen, even more so than Richard. And every time, she lashed herself for disloyalty.

As she stared at the picture, it seemed her perspective changed subtly, and instead of gazing into the distance, the native was now looking directly at her. Dark eyes held hers, and for an instant it seemed she was on the verge of an amazing discovery. Something momentous beckoned her, just out of sight, something of greater importance than even the source of the Nile could ever be.

On the periphery of her vision the world turned a soft blue as the walls of the study were replaced by a flourishing canopy of trees and enormous ferns. She smelled the deep rich scent of bourgeoning vegetation and tropical flowers. Birds never native to England suddenly called around her, and beneath their trills she heard a deep chuffing, like an enormous cat rising lazily to prowl through the jungle.

This could be hers, those dark eyes promised. She had a gift her husband had never seen; she could be more, mean more. Her heart and mind and body could blossom just as the jungle did, filled with pleasure and companionship deeper than anything she had ever found in her marriage.

With a cry of anguish she slammed the book shut. The blue world vanished, and around her was once more only the crowded study that represented her husband's legacy. With something close to horror she looked at the book in her hands. Faced with the intolerable temptation it represented, she knew only one solution.

Whispering the Lord's Prayer to shore up her strength, she crossed the room on trembling legs to the fireplace, laid against the chill of English autumn. "Heathen filth. Burn it all!" She tossed the book into the flames.

She had to cling to the mantelpiece with both hands to prevent herself from dragging the book back from destruction as she watched the pages begin to blacken and smoke at the edges. A sound of pain escaped her when the image of the native man erupted in flames, but she fought down her instincts and held firm until nothing remained but curls of grey and black ash.

From somewhere in the distance, she heard a faint anguished howling, as if a wolf struggled against a trap.

**Two: Lt. Victor Sarris**

"Lieutenant Sarris, thank you for appearing today. I'm sure I speak for all my colleagues  
here when I say we are grateful for your service.

"At this time, I also want to stress that this enquiry is not a search for scapegoats. We need to understand what happened, and why, in order to better plan and prepare future missions in the area. The object is not blame, but improvement.

"Lt. Sarris, please be seated."

"Thank you, sir."

Nearly two months after being rescued, Sarris still bore signs of his ordeal. His dress uniform hung loosely on his gaunt frame, and he approached his seat hesitantly, like a man not entirely sure of his balance.

"Please begin by telling us in your own words what happened. We will ask for clarification as necessary."

"Yes, sir. Guerrillas from further south had been infiltrating the area around the Chopec Pass for several weeks, and command made the decision to send in a team to contact the local tribes. The guerrillas didn't treat the locals any better than the army did, and I guess the brass figured if we could develop good relations with them we might be able to organize the tribes into a militia to keep the area out of guerrilla control.

"Our team assembled under Captain Ellison on March 10th. We spent three days preparing and being briefed on the local conditions. We took off on the morning of March 14th."  
He broke off and took a sip of water. "The chopper went down in the mountains about two hours later."

"Excuse me, Lieutenant." One of the majors on the panel leaned forward. "Why did the helo go down? Were you fired on?"

"I don't know, sir. We definitely weren't hit by a missile or an RPG—I could tell that from the wreckage. The pilot never took evasive action. Someone might have got in a very lucky small-arms shot from the ground—taken out the controls to the tail rotor or something—but the odds of that . . ." Sarris shrugged. "I really couldn't say, sir."

The major nodded. "Please continue."

"All I know is, we went down fast and hard. I'd like to commend our pilot, Lt. Washington. He kept us in the air for a few extra seconds, and it bought us some room. If we'd gone down a quarter-mile further back, we'd have pancaked into some rock outcrops. All of us would've burned."

He paused for more water.

"Sergeant Perez, Specialist Bowman and Specialist Oakland were killed on impact. So was Lt. Washington. Specialist Yuan had both his legs mangled, and Corporal Bonterre's right arm and several ribs were broken. Yuan died four days later. He'd lost too much blood, and we just couldn't get enough fluids into him. Bonterre seemed to be recovering, but then he developed pneumonia. I figured a rib punctured his lung. He started running a fever, had a harder and harder time breathing. He died eleven days after the crash."

"And Captain Ellison?" Sarris hesitated.

"Lieutenant?"

"Sorry, sir. Captain Ellison and I had served together previously, and I considered him a friend. Ellison took a bad hit to the head in the crash. He was unconscious for a while, but seemed okay when he came to. Complained of a headache, but that wasn't a surprise.

"We patched up the other two as best we could, and buried the dead. We set up camp and Jim—Captain Ellison—even went out to do some scouting. He thought we might be close enough to one of the Chopec villages to find some help."

Sarris fell silent.

"I understand this is painful, Lieutenant, but we do need as full an account as possible."

"Yes, sir. Jim seemed fine for a week or so. We took turns taking care of the wounded and searching the area for signs of the locals, but weren't able to make contact. Then Jim started to complain about headaches again. He said he was having problems with his vision and hearing, too. He kept insisting he could hear people talking in the local dialect, said they had to be close to us in the forest and he had to go out and find them. He started  
. . . I don't know how to put it. Spacing out. He'd sit watching the trees or listening for something that wasn't there. I'd have to shake him to pull him out of it."

"It sounds as if Captain Ellison might have been suffering from a slow brain bleed."

Sarris nodded. "I sort of figured that, but there wasn't anything we could do. We were equipped for first aid, not brain surgery. His vision got more and more erratic, and then he started to have trouble eating. Said things tasted and smelled too strong. One morning when I went to relieve him on watch, he was slumped down, just staring at the fire. I couldn't rouse him. I got him on his sleeping bag, tried to wake him up." Sarris swallowed hard. "He was completely unresponsive. He never spoke or moved again. His heartbeat and breathing gradually slowed down over the next thirty-six hours, and then he was . . . gone."

"What did you do then?"

"After I buried Jim and Bonterre, I went further into the jungle, looking for any sign of the Chopec. I figured finding them would be my only chance for survival: I was running low on food, and starting to feel sick myself. Two days later I ran into a couple of tribesmen and they took me back to their village."

"You were with the tribe for over a year. Were you able to make any headway with regard to your mission against the guerrillas?"

"No, sir. Their shaman, a guy called Incacha, was dead set against it, and none of them would cross him. I never picked up the language too well, but I got the idea he'd been waiting for some kind of superhero to lead them, and I wasn't the one they were waiting for." Sarris smiled wearily. "Incacha told me once that without Enqueri there was no future for the tribe, but I didn't understand what that meant."

**Three: Dr. Sylvester McCoy**

It should have been a piece of cake. White-haired older doctor, with a bit of a paunch, versus a young, fast, motivated grad student. No contest.

Blair had studied the hospital layout, and had no difficulty finding the section where the specialists had a suite of cubbyhole offices assigned for doing paperwork while they waited for test results. With Ellison's file to study beforehand, he had a list of the tests Ellison would be undergoing that afternoon, and a few minutes study of the hospital directory gave him a pretty good idea of which doctor would be in charge.

Dr. McCoy had left his lab coat, complete with name-tag, hanging on the coat-tree in his office while he went for lunch. Slipping the tag off was the work of seconds, and then Blair hustled up to the lab area. Neither the technician who had done the blood draws on Ellison nor the radiologist at the X-ray lab had paid any attention to Blair as he hovered outside. He was just another guy in a lab coat and glasses, clipboard in hand. As long as he looked busy and moved purposefully, he fit right in.

The timing of the actual contact could be a little tricky: if Dr. McCoy was a fast eater he might be back to pick up the scan results before Blair had a chance to give Ellison his spiel. But it was a chance he had to take. Getting Ellison out of the mindset of medical patient and into Blair's territory was the only way to get him to take his destiny seriously.

A Sentinel.

A real, live Sentinel, in Cascade of all places. Blair had pinched himself several times when he saw the file. Complaints of four senses off the charts, a cop and former soldier, time spent isolated in a primitive setting—there couldn't be a better set of circumstances.

"Holy Grail time," Blair whispered triumphantly.

"Excuse me? Just a moment, young man, where are you going?"

The voice barely registered in Blair's musing, and he turned absently to give some noncommittal answer. His eyes widened as he recognized the man who'd caught hold of his sleeve.

"And what are you doing with my name tag?" Dr. McCoy snapped.

Caught flat-footed, Blair sputtered for a second before his brain and mouth synchronized again. "Hey, is that your name tag? Great! I found it in the hall, and just stuck it on my coat, you know, to make sure I wouldn't forget to hand it in to somebody."

"That's the best you can do?" McCoy sneered. "Someone call security!" he shouted down the corridor. "Right now!"

"C'mon, man, there's no need for that, I'll just go quietly—" Blair tried to pull out of McCoy's hold, but the old man's grip was surprisingly strong.

"You're not going anywhere. Security! Help!"

A beefy orderly slammed open the door to the room beside them. "Doctor? Are you okay?"

"Grab him!" McCoy shouted just as Blair managed to finally slip out of the lab coat and made a break for freedom.

The orderly lunged for Blair's shoulder, and missed by only a hair. Blair darted along the corridor, ignoring the shouts from McCoy and the orderly, ran through the cross passage at the nurses' station and hurtled into the stairwell. Instead of heading down, he ran upward and at the next landing emerged onto another floor, this one a series of patient rooms. Moving quickly past the doorways, he found what he'd desperately hoped would be there: a janitor's closet.

Inside the closet, he leaned against the wall, shuddering.

So close, so damn close! Another five minutes, and he would have been able to talk to Ellison himself. Now he'd have to start from scratch. There was no guarantee he'd be able to make contact with Ellison in a way that the cop would see as legit. And in the meantime, goddess alone knew what kind of medical procedures Ellison would be subjected to. By the time Blair got to him—if he ever did—Ellison might not be a sentinel any longer.

Blair shook himself back to the present. His main concern at the moment had to be getting out of the hospital without being seen, and probably arrested. His mouth curved in self-mockery. Who'd have thought old Doc McCoy would be such a hard-ass?

Ten minutes later, Blair was heading down to one of the service entrances, dressed in janitor's coveralls, his hair tucked up under a baseball cap and his glasses in his pocket. As he passed by the lab floor, Blair risked a peek through the stairwell door.

Dr. McCoy was now the nucleus of a mob of nurses, orderlies and security staff. "I've called the police, doctor," one of the nurses said.

Blair flinched. The police? All he'd done was try to get ahead on his research a bit, and they were all acting like he was Charlie Manson.

"Thank you," Dr. McCoy said. "And please apologise for me to the gentleman in my exam room, and tell him to reschedule his appointment."

"Are you sure, Dr. McCoy? He's a police officer, and he says his problem is really urgent."

"Oh, I'm afraid I'll be far too busy to deal with him today." Dr. McCoy turned to the hospital security officer. "We'll need an inventory of all the narcotics cabinets in this area, stat. Check all the other exam rooms, too, and find anybody this imposter has talked to. Make sure he hasn't made any diagnoses or suggested treatment. Or hoodwinked people into giving him personal information. Oh, and get hold of my office nurse. Tell her to check if any prescription pads are missing from my desk.

"Whoever that young man was, he picked on the wrong doctor."

**Four: Dr. Eli Stoddard**

Eli Stoddard rubbed his eyes wearily and watched the scruffy young man in his visitors' chair stretch unconcernedly. Most students who sat across the desk from him were a bit apprehensive, or fascinated by his overflowing bookshelves and collection of artefacts.  
Blair Sandburg looked barely able to hide his boredom.

"I'm very disappointed in you, Blair. You're a brilliant young man, and you have so much potential. But you've missed nearly a third of your classes this semester, and only turned in two of your assignments. Your lab partners have been forced to ask for an extension on the submission of the practicum project because you didn't share data from the field sessions. Honestly, even if you do exceptionally well on your final, I don't see how I can pass you."

"Don't sweat it, Eli." Blair shrugged. "I probably won't be around for the finals anyway."

"You're dropping out?" Stoddard straightened in disbelief. "Blair, you won't be eligible for any kind of tuition rebate at this stage in the semester. You'll waste thousands of dollars!"

Blair shrugged again. "It's only money, man. Can't let yourself become tied to a materialistic mindset, right? Really messes up your karma."

"And your loans?" Stoddard asked dryly.

"That's what bankruptcy's for." Blair leaned forward earnestly. "Look, Eli, I just don't think I'm cut out for the academic life. It's all deadlines and timetables. Publish or perish so you can climb up that greasy pole. And for what? Getting a bigger grant, so you have to do even more work, and meet even more deadlines? Where's the adventure in life, the new experiences?"

Stoddard looked down at his desk for a long moment, then said quietly, "If I haven't been able to get across to you the real deep value in bringing new discoveries to light about the people we share this planet with, then I've failed you as a teacher, and I am sorry."

"No, no!" Blair interrupted, gesturing wildly. "You've been a great teacher, and I really have learned a lot from you. It's just . . . I'm not ready for anything permanent yet, you know? There's so many places I haven't been, so much I haven't tried yet."

"We fund expeditions placements—"

"But not until I'm in my third year at least. I just don't feel like waiting another eighteen months to get a chance to visit sites everybody else has picked over already. I want to go somewhere authentic, man."

 _And how will you recognize something authentic when you won't take the trouble to learn what to look for? You can't fly by the seat of your pants on everything_. Stoddard bit back the words sharply, aware of how judgmental they would sound to this young man. He decided on one final tactic.

"And what about your interest in those, what did you call them? Sentinels? It's a brand new field, with years of undiscovered possibilities. You could potentially bring a whole new vision of tribal cultures into mainstream anthropology."

"Yeah, but I'd have to stay in Cascade, wouldn't I? You're the only person who's ever accepted there could be something to it. And, honestly, I've had all the wet and cold I can stand for a while. A warm sunny beach in Madagascar is looking better and better all the time."

"So you haven't actually made any long term plans?" Stoddard said, stifling a sigh.

"Oh, something will come up. Mom always says you have to be open to the universe. I'll hit the road and see where I land. And who knows? Someday I might come back to Cascade and finish my degree."

Long after Blair left his office, Eli Stoddard sat looking at the boy's file. So young, and so much potential going to waste. Stoddard already knew Blair would never return to Cascade.  
He unlocked the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet, and slipped the file into the very back, behind the divider marked "Shamans".

**Five: Captain Simon Banks**

“Six months, six targets." Simon Banks looked over the assembled detectives. "Eight dead, twenty-one injured. A post office in Tacoma. A bridge on the Snohomish. A ferry in the middle of Puget Sound. And there's no reason to think he won't hit us again. As a matter of fact, we're overdue. We have to collar this guy before we lose another life. And that's why I've asked your cities to loan us investigators. You'll be coordinating with our leads on the case, Detective Henri Brown of Major Crimes and Captain Joel Taggert of the bomb squad, and with Lt. Carolyn Plummer, who heads our Technical Support Division. She'll provide you with computers, electronics or any specialized forensic equipment you might need." 

< “When can we speak with Detective Brown?" 

"He's on stake-out at an old lumber mill in the woods north of Auburn. He'll report in later today and will brief you then." 

"Do you have any leads or suspects?" 

"Nutcases claiming responsibility have come out of the woodwork recently. So far, there's only one we're taking seriously." 

Carolyn Plummer spoke up. "You'll find copies of the genuine article's correspondence in your folders. It's email, always signed "The Switchman", but we can't be certain we're dealing with only one suspect. None of this has been released to the media." 

"Who's this James Ellison that all the emails are addressed to? Someone on your task force?" 

A flash of something that might have been pain crossed Simon's face, and he responded reluctantly. "Ellison was a detective with the Cascade PD a couple of years ago. He's left the department and hasn't been part of the investigation at all." 

"Are you going to bring him in, Captain Banks? Seems like this Switchman is targeting him—maybe he could offer some insight." 

Banks rubbed his forehead. "I'd appreciate it if this never went any further than this room. Ellison was a detective in Vice. He was kicked off the force after his partner went missing with the ransom money in a kidnapping case. Nobody could prove Ellison was involved, but he had enough black marks on his record by then that the brass could force a deal: he didn't contest his dismissal, and IA didn't charge him with being an accessory." 

So you think this Switchman doesn't know he's left the force?" 

Hell, for all we know, Ellison _is_ the Switchman. But like I said, we need all this kept completely confidential. Who knows, maybe it's something we can use to identify the son of a bitch someday. 

After the visiting detectives had been escorted from his office, Banks looked apologetically at Carolyn. 

Sorry, Plummer. I couldn't see any way to downplay it." 

It's not your fault, Simon," she said wearily. "Jim was a loose cannon with a chip on his shoulder the size of Mount Rainier. I never believed he had anything to do with whatever happened to Jack Pendergast, but he sure didn't make things easier for himself with his attitude." 

Yeah. More interested in giving the brass the finger than finding out where his partner was." Banks shook his head in disgust. "He had the makings of a good detective too, but damn! Never would let anybody tell him anything." 

Tell me about it." Carolyn grimaced. "Our marriage was _the_ classic example of a woman thinking she could save a bad boy who didn't want to be saved." 

"You never talked about it?" Banks asked. 

"You know Jim. Lights are out, nobody's home—or if there is, how could you tell?" 

"If it turns out—" Banks broke off abruptly, flushing slightly. 

Honestly, I don't think it's him. This is all too calculated, too precise, too long-term. Jim's MO was erupting like Mount St. Helen's, and being sorry half an hour later." Carolyn leaned over his desk and looked at him unflinchingly. "But if it turns out Jim is the Switchman, I'll take him down myself." 


End file.
